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Intro: Côte-de-Nuits

We have
been working with Thierry Mortet since the 1993 vintage, and with every year we
have seen an improvement in his wines, to the point where all of his wines are
now amongst the best. They demand a little bottle age – three years from
vintage date for the Bourgogne Rouge, five for the village wines and at least
six for the 1er crus. Thierry’s viticulture is now organically certified
although we had to almost chisel this information out of him!

Amiot-Servelle
are a close family concern with just six hectares in and around
Chambolle-Musigny. Quality has always been very good here, but the wines stepped
up to the highest level after conversion to organic viticulture back in 2003.
Their wines have a succulent quality, great purity and right across the range
you never notice any oak. Due to the tiny quantities produced, they used to be
something of a hidden secret, that is until the 2013 vintage when Neal Martin from
robertparker.com rated the wines as good as Cécile Tremblay. They are wines
that age especially well. I would especially draw your attention to some of the
very reasonably priced older vintages (for eg Chambolle 1er Cru Charmes 2011) –
prices have naturally firmed up in recent vintages both due to low yields and
better press exposure.

Cécile
Tremblay continues to receive plaudits for her alluring, startlingly pure wines
(bio-dynamic viticulture, unfined and unfiltered) which offer both a succulence
and incredible depth of flavour. David
Schildknecht (for Robert Parker) writes, ‘This grand niece of Henri Jayer makes
from fewer than four hectares some of the most exciting new wines in the Côte-de-Nuits,
pure and full of finesse. So run rather than walk to get in as close as is
still possible to the ground floor at a domaine that is sure to become one of
Burgundy’s elite, but sadly, almost as surely, to remain tiny’.

Cécile is
well-known amongst other vignerons for the time, care and energy she applies in
her vineyards – she works with an incredible dynamism and it is clear that her
efforts have been more than rewarded with a fabulous range of wines. All
Cécile’s wines have a very pure, sculpted fruit quality due to very low yields
from lovingly tended vines. She is so fanatically committed to quality that in
poor vintages she prefers to declassify her top wines to the generic
appellation level. Very few of her Burgundian colleagues seem inclined to
follow suit!